My Bis Nonna's (Great Grandmother) Banana Bread

To honor my great grandmother, I am sharing her famous banana bread recipe! Famous with our friends and family at least ;).

I wanted to keep her recipe as true to the original as possible, so I kept in the vegetable shortening. However, it could be swapped for a vegan yogurt, applesauce or vegan sour cream, if you prefer.

Ingredients:

-3 ripe bananas, mashed

-1/3 cup shortening, softened

-1 1/2 cups sugar

-2 flax egg (2 tbsp. Flaxseed meal mixed with 5 tbsp. of water)

-1/2 cup plant milk

-2 1/2 cups flour

-1 tsp. Salt

-1 1/2 tsp. Baking powder

-1 1/2 tsp. Baking soda

-1/2 cup chopped nuts (I use walnuts, but have also used pecans)

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (when you bake, you will lower the temp) and line a loaf pan with parchment paper (this will make it easier to pull out of the pan).

In a bowl, cream together the vegetable shortening and sugar. Then mix in the banana and flax eggs. Once combined, gently mix in the plant milk.

Slowly mix in the flour, salt, baking powder and soda until just combined. Then fold in the nuts if using.

Pour your mixture into your prepared loaf pan and place in the oven to bake. Lower the oven temp to 350 degrees when you put your loaf in.

Bake for 60-75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before removing from the pan.

*Note, I have a large loaf pan (7x11 edge to edge - inside is roughly 6x9 inches), if yours is smaller, I recommend removing some batter and making a couple of banana muffins, otherwise your bread could take longer to make.